SAWDAYS

Product designer | Web

Enabling and implementing live availability technology for a 25 year old brand and its loyal users.

I conducted research and ran a design sprint to re-imagine the search experience for Sawday’s users and to uncover the implications for hosts signed up to the platform.

Problem

After conducting a study of user interviews, I found new users expect live availability details and instant booking options, when booking a holiday at a high price point. However the Sawday’s platform currently relies on a slow, manual, human system.

My challenge was to work out how we could update our tech without alienating some of our hosts, or currently loyal customers.

Out of 3k properties with Sawday’s around 65% were interested in the new search technology.

Solution

I led design sprints to rapidly uncover, ideate, and test solutions addressing user and business challenges.

From these, I wireframed and prototyped two solutions allowing users to view properties with and without live availability:

A system encouraging users to explore places and stay open with their dates.
A conventional search bar that also surfaced alternative options to maximize visibility.

Delivery

After testing the two prototypes, I designed a conventional search bar that went on to surface a hierarchy of results.

The user flow went on to pepper properties that didn’t have live availability with the ones that did to ensure the users were properly matched with their dream holiday, even if extra steps needed to be taken.